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REMINISCENCES OF JOHN FISKE 



SAMUEL SWETT GREEN 



From the Proceedings of the Meeting of the Amebican Antiquarian 
Society held October 30, 1901 




'^oxa^Ux, Pa^^., m. ^. ^, 

PRESS OF CHARLES HAMILTON, 

811 MAIN STREET. 

1 902. 



- ^ 



p. 

PertonV 



EEMINISCENCES OF JOHN FISKE.' 



Many years ago, when sitting at the graduates' tal)le of a 
well known hoarding-house in Cambridge, I used to hear 
much talk about a promising young man who sat at the 
undergraduates' table in another room, who was a devoted 
student and at that time absorbed in the study of 
mythology. Persons having rooms in the house were wit- 
nesses on the piazza, in the evening, of an interchange of 
expressions of tender interest between that undergraduate, 
John Fiske, and a charming j^oung lad}^ who had come to 
Cambridge on a visit and sat at the graduates' table. That 
interest ripened into something deeper, and before long 
two happy souls were united in marriage. 

In later life I became somewhat intimate with Mr. Fiske. 



1 Among articles regarding Mr. Fiske and his work whicli have come under my 
notice, the following are especially worthy of attention : 

As giving estimates of him as an historian, the remarks of James Schouler, in 
the Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, October, 1901; Albert 
Bushwell Hart in a portion of a pai^er entitled, American School of Historians, 
in the International Mnntlily, Vol. 2, pp. 294-322, and at length in a paper, since 
Mr. Fiske's death, in the same periodical, October, 1901, pp. 558-569, entitled, 
The Historical "Service of John Fiske; Lyman Abbott, in an article entitled, John 
Fiske's Histories, in The Outlook for Nov. 16, 1901, p. 709. 

As giving an estimate of the position of Mr. Fiske as a psychologist and philoso- 
pher, John Fiske as a Thinker, by Josiah Royce, in the Boston Evening Transcript, 
for July 13, 1901. This article, in a revised form, appeared as a paper in the Ha,rvard 
Graduates' Maf/azhie, September, 1901, pp. 23-33. 

As of especial interest, John Fiske, by William D. Howells, in Ha.rj)er's IVeeJcly, 
July 20, 1901, p. 732; John Fiske, Popularizer, in the Sieiv York Nation, July 11, 1901, 
pp. 26, 27. 

For sketches of Mr. Fiske's life, one by William Roscoe Thayer, in the Harvard 
G-raduates' Magazine, Sept., 1901, pp. 33-38; The Critic, Vol. 26 (Jan. -June, 1895), an 
article entitled, A Well-Equipped Historian (a copy of a leaflet sent out on request 
by Messrs. Houghton, Mifllin & Co.); The Bookman, article entitled, Some Fiske 
Anecdotes, Sept., 1901, pp. 10, 11; American Monthly Review of Reviews, Vol. 24, pp. 
175-178 (giving portraits of Mr. Fiske at the ages of 8 and 25 years), an article by 
John Graham Brooks. 

For additional matter of interest, Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 88, pp. 282-284; The 
Critic, Vol. 39, pp. 117, 118, John Fiske by George L. Beer; the Cambridge Tribune, 
Aug. 3, 1901, John Fiske's Library. 



lie often eame to Worcester, and when there was always, 
I believe, the guest of my brother and myself. In speaking 
of him, I hope not to repeat anything that has been said in 
print regarding him. After making one or two discon- 
nected remarks respecting him, I wish to say a few words 
about a feature in the order of his studies, and glance at 
one of his mental traits. 

Mr. Fiske's writings will alwa3\s give a great deal of 
trouble to librarians. He was intensely interested in 
current events, and often alluded to them or used them in 
the way of illustrations. Our accomplished State librarian, 
Mr. C. B. Tillinghast, tells me that he spent many hours 
in finding out what Mr. Fiske referred to as the Texas 
Seed Bill. 

In several of the sketches of Mr. Fiske which have 
appeared since his death, especial mention is made of his 
sweetness of disposition, geniality of manner and modesty 
in demeanor. I was particularly struck by his i)atience. 
When I first knew him he was tall and slender, but, as all 
know, lie had, in later years, to carry about a ponderous 
weight of flesh. I have seen him as he tried to climb a 
hill, and walked hy his side as he went up stairs, liut, 
annoying as it was for him to do these things and difficult 
though it was for him to lireathe, I never heard him utter 
a word of complaint. 

I said to him once : "It is hard for you to go up stairs." 
He answered pleasantly, " The doctor says that no vital 
organ is affected, and the trouble is only that the diaphragm 
is too near the breathing apparatus." 

Mr. Fiske's patience showed itself noticeably in conver- 
sation. The words which he used in regard to his intimate 
friend (my friend, too), Chauncey Wright, are applicable 
to him. In speaking of Mr. Wright's absolute freedom 
from egotism, he says : " The patient deference with v/hich 
he would answer the silly remarks of stupid or conceited 
people was as extraordinary as the untiring interest with 



which he would seek to make things plain to the least 
cultivated intelligence. This kind of patient interest, 
joined with his sweetness of disposition and winning 
simplicity of manner, made him a great favorite with 
children. "1 

A recent writer^ states that in his opinion Mr. Fiske 
would never have entered the field of historj^ if it had not 
been necessary for him to earn a living. A gentleman 
who has been constantly in close contact with him tells me 
that that is his belief also. On the other hand, Mr. Fiske 
told me, in answer to a question as to how it came about 
that he developed such an interest in the philosophy of 
Herbert Spencer, that he studied the philosophy of evolu- 
tion in order that he might understand history. Whatever 
the fact may be, however, it is very evident that his 
profound and comprehensive knowledge of the principles 
of evolution and their applications in the fields of natural 
history, the science of man, sociology and other divisions 
of knowledge, greatly enriched his historical work. 

It has been truly said of Hume and Robertson that in 
their historical writings they have given us only " graceful 
summaries of superficial knowledge."^ This never can be 
said of Mr. Fiske. 

Our late associate, Justin Winsor, told me that Avhen 
Mr. Fiske became interested in some period of American 
history it was his custom to ask him to send to him the 
best books which treated debated questions from different 
points of view. Mr. Fiske certainly reproduced the con- 
tents of these and other works in a clear and very charming 
narrative. His judgments regarding matters in contro- 
versy were also very sensible. This was not all, however. 
He had besides a remarkable insight into the connection 
between events. While not predominantly a historian of 



> Darwinism and other essays (1885), p. 108. 
" George L. Beer, The Critic, Vol. 39, p. 118. 
' See Leslie Stephen's English Thought in the 18th Century, V. 1, p. 378. 



6 

the " great forces of history " he always had in mind " the 
continuity " of the events which gives to our history " a 
real unit3\" Although preeminent in the exposition of 
military and political events, in everything which he wrote 
about American history, he had a consciousness of the idea 
of development and of the principles which underlie the 
movements of events and the growth of institutions in our 
country. 

I should not for a moment think of comparing Mr. 
Fiske with the great historian Gibbon in respect to capa- 
city for research or the habit of making use of primitive 
sources of information, but in regard to the quality of 
which I am speaking he was the superior of Gibbon. 

I agree with our distinguished associate, Leslie Stephen, 
that the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire is a 
"monumental work, not yet, if it ever will be, superseded. 
. Whatever its faults," it " remains as the first 
great triumph of a genuine historical method."^ I also 
agree with Mr. Stephen when he says that while Gibbon 
gives us "an admirable summary of the bare facts of 
history . . . . he is everywhere conspicuously 
deficient in that sympathetic power which enables an 
imaoinative writer to breathe life into the dead bones of 
the past." .... He is " a skilful anatomical demon- 
strator of the dead framework of society," but "an 
utterly incompetent observer of its living development. "^ 

Mr. Howells, in some charming reminiscences ^ which 
he printed soon after Mr. Fiske's death, speaks of him as 
a philosopher ; he seems, however, to hesitate to call him 
a prophet. 

To my mind he was preeminently a prophet, using that 
word in the sense in which it is used b}^ Jeremy Taj'lor in 
his powerful discourse on Prophesying, or preaching. 



' English Thought, etc., Vol. 1, p. 44G. 

2//h(«., p. 447. 

8 Harpers iVeeklij, July 20, 1901, p. 732. 



He was religious in boyhood, he certainly was a man of 
faith in later life. One who knew him well tells me that 
there was a period in middle life when his trust in intui- 
tions was somewhat feeble, although it returned to him 
later. This, it seems to me, is the impression which the 
reader gets from some of Mr. Fiske's earlier essays. 
Whether correct or not, it is evident that he was a firm 
believer in the latter portion of his life. It was durino- 
his later years that I became best acquainted with him, and 
then he trusted largely to feeling in forming convictions. 
Professor Royce,^ it seems to me, has given an 
admirable analysis of his philosophical position. He has 
stated it himself in the introduction to his volume of 
essays, " Through Nature to God." In speaking of con- 
versations which he had with Huxlej' in his earlier years, 
he saj^s that he was conscious that while they generallj' 
agreed in their ways of looking at things, there Avas a 
difference. He himself, he says, valued, as Huxley did 
not, a source of information to which Tennyson refers in 
the lines : 

" Who forged that other influence, 
That heat of inward evidence, 
By which he doubts against the sense ? "* 

Mr. Fiske was always so genial and serene and so 
oblivious of the burdens and sorrows which a large portion 
of mankind feel so keenly, that I cannot think of him 
otherwise than as a man of faith. 

I take pleasure in remembering that Mr. Fiske told me 
that it was in consequence of a profound talk upon the 
subject of immortality which we had in my brother's 
parlor, that he selected that topic for a lecture which he 
had agreed soon to give before a society of ladies in 
Boston. The address was afterwards printed as the first 
of his little publications on religious philosophy, and is 
known as the Destiny of Man. 

' Harvard Graduates' Magazine, Sept., 1901. 
2 Through Nature to God [1899], p. vii. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



011 410 281 7 



I remember hearing Mr. Fiske deliver as a sermon in the 
pulpit of a church in New Bedford, on a Sunday morning, 
during the summer vacation of its pastor, a portion of the 
first of the essays in Through Nature to God. He liked 
to do this kind of thing, and on several occasions appeared 
in pulpits on Sunday. 

I am far from thinking that Mr. Fiske has said the 
final word in religious philosophy. After men have 
learned all that science has to teach on this subject they 
turn to a border-land of knowledge, and find a source of 
information in faculties which belong to the mind at its 
existing stage of development, as the result of human 
evolution. In treading upon this field we stand on dan- 
o;erous oround. While from the intuitions of the race we 
get glimpses of truth, the truth obtained from this source 
is mingled with a great deal of error. 

It is the opinion of the best thinkers, I believe, that 
Mr. Fiske relied more confidently upon the deliverances of 
" common sense," or the " practical reason," than he was 
justified in doing in the present state of knowledge. 

Still I must remember that his clear and devout exposi- 
tions of religious philosophy have afforded great solace 
and support to the great body of the more thoughtful 
persons who still find a congenial home within the l^orders 
of the more advanced branches of the Christian Church. 
For one I heartily rejoice that this is so. 

Mr. Fiske told me that he desired very much to write a 
life of Jesus. He said the same thing to the late Mrs. 
Martha Le Baron Goddard. I wish he had done so ; it 
would, I am sure, have been a glorious work. 

In 1870 Mr. Fiske printed in the curious little book 
which I hold in my hand called The Modern Thinker two 
essays entitled, The Jesus of History and The Christ of 
Dogma. These essays were afterwards reprinted in a 
well known volume entitled, The Unseen World and Other 
Essays. 



In a note to the first of them in that vohmie he .says that 
he intends to write a " work on ' Jesus of Nazareth and the 
Founding of Christianity,' " of which these essa3^s " must 
be regarded as furnishing only a few introductory hints. "^ 

I read these papers carefully when they first appeared. 
I have read them again recently. They emljody, in the 
main, tlie results of the researches of the great German 
scholar, Ferdinand Christian Baur and those of the cele- 
brated David Friedrich Strauss, as they appear in his " New 
Life of Jesus." Modifications of the teachings of these 
great scholars would have to be entertained toda3\ It is 
very noticeable, however, that they still have a powerful 
influence in shaping the conclusions of the best writers and 
scholars today. 

It is interesting to see, for example, how widespread if 
the adoption and constant use of Baur's fundamental 
" Tendenz Theorj^" But much has been added, since his 
time, to our knowledge of the dates of the New Testament 
books and the relative order in which they were written. 
With what joyous enthusiasm Mr. Fiske would have 
absorbed this additional knoAvledo;e and brought his 
information up to date I 

To turn again to Gibbon, I presume that we all believe 
that the arguments in his two celebrated chapters on the 
rise of Christianity are conclusive as against the proofs of 
supernaturalism as stated by Paley and writers of his 
school. But he seems to have been wholly incapable of 
fathoming the real causes that led to the acceptableness of 
Christianity in the heathen world. That cold man, with- 
out enthusiasm, lacking in imagination, with only the 
dimmest consciousness of the part played by development 
in the movements of history, could not realize the attitude 
of the people in the Roman Empire as, having lost their 
gods, they stood " groaning and travailing in spirit, wait- 
ing for the revealing of the Sons of God " ; nor could he 

1 Kdition of 1899, p. 66. 



10 

appreciate the power which lay in the life of Jesus and in 
the simple but deep teachings of the gospels, Avhen 
stripped of the impedimenta of the law by Paul and 
formulated in the terms of the Greek philosophy prevalent 
in the civilized world ; he could not appreciate, I sa}^ the 
power of these truths, when embodied as the}^ were in the 
life of early Christian brotherhoods, to give needed com- 
fort and support to the longing and hungry souls of the 
heathen world. 

Had Mr. Fiske written a life of Jesus it would have had 
the picturesqueness and interest of the remarkable Vie de 
fMsiis of Ernest Renan and, without the blemish of his 
sentinientalit}^ Avould have represented a much higher 
standard of scholarship. 

In writing; of the sad death of Buckle at Damascus Mr. 
Fiske says, "as a fresh instance .... of how the 
world passes a^vay from us while yet we are stammering 
over the al})habet of its mysteries, there is something 
infinitely pathetic in the cry which went up from the 
exhausted and fever-stricken traveller : ' My book, my 
book ! I never shall finish my book ! ' " ^ 

Mr. Fiske, also, left his history unfinished. Had he 
l)een conscious that he was near his end when he died, he, 
too, would have had regrets on that account, but whatever 
sorrow he might have felt, I am sure that he would have 
passed aAvay in the cheerful serenity which marked his 
life. 



1 Darwinism and Otlier Essays (1895), pp. 211, 212. 



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